By any other name
by RM-ace
Summary: Kara really hates the name Supergirl


Kara does not recognise the man in front of her

She recognizes her uncles' kind smile. She recognises her fathers' blue eyes, her blue eyes, staring intently back at her. She recognizes her house symbol proudly emblazed on this mans' chest, the crest of the house of El, as familiar to her as her own name.

The man addresses her in broken Kriptonese, his accent makes his speech almost incomprehensible, he turns her mother tongue into something twisted and harsh and.. _alien_. He is as foreign to her as their birth planet is to him.

Kara answers in broken English. Kriptonese now belongs to her and her alone.

-s-

Kel no Clark explains that he can't take care of her, his apartment is too small, Metropolis Cbd is no place for a child, he can't afford to feed both of them on a junior reporter's salary. He's way to busy saving the world and writing fluff news for the Daily Planet, she will only be lonely stuck in his shoebox apartment. She will be much happier with the Danvers, they have a beach house and a teenage daughter around her age… Kara thinks his explanations is more for his own sake then for hers

She wonders how a man grown can't take care of a teenager but a teenager was expected to take care of an infant.

She would never have abandoned him

El Mayarah

Stronger together

This man does not understand, the symbol he so proudly portrays on his chest it is nothing more than a "s" to him. He does not know how his parents cried when his pot shot of into the night sky, how his mother made her promise to protect him and take care of him or how her father explained that they will always be together because blood bonds them all when she could not let go of his hand to climb into her own pod.

Blood bonds them all.

This man is not her blood, he is not even Kryptonian

She has never felt more alone

-s-

Eliza and Jeremiah hovers around her.

Eliza keeps asking if she is ok, if she needs anything, if she wants to talk. All Eliza seas is a newly made orphan. She watches her, waiting for the dam to break so she can wipe out the inevitable tears. Kara never cries.

Jeremiah looks at her with curiosity, his scientific mind taking in everything she does. How she reacts to stimuli, what she eats, how much she sleeps. He is constantly analysing her looking for any knew information that he can add to his limited knowledge of Kryptonian physiology. Kara knows his dying to examine her, but he is too afraid to ask. She does not volunteer.

Alex leaves her alone

She likes Alex

-s-

Her name is Kara Danvers now

She stares at her reflection in the full length mirror, she is wearing the strange earth garments Eliza picket out for her. Earth and Krypton have a different outlook on modesty, Kara feels exposed. Eliza says she looks cute, Alex says she looks like a dork, Kara does not know what dose words mean, but she thinks she looks like an alien.

-s-

Eliza says Kara Danvers should try to blend in as much as possible, Kara Zor- El was highborn and the heir to two great houses, she stood out. Kara Danvers is average at school and bad at sports, Kara Zor-El loved science and excelled at her sword fighting lessons with her aunt. Kara Danvers does not fight she does not stand up for herself or for anyone else, she runs to her sister for help if there is any trouble. Kara Zor-El was going to join the military guild and become a great general like her aunt.

Most importantly Eliza says Kara Danvers is kind, helpful and smiles at others, Kara Zor-El is sad lonely and sees no reason why she should smile at anyone.

She does not know this Kara Danvers; she does not understand why she can't be Kara Zor-El instead.

-s-

Kara does not know if she is Kara Zor-El or Kara Danvers, till the night that she realises that she is neither, she is just scared.

Jeremiah buys Eliza a popcorn maker for her birthday. Kara forgets her glasses at the library.

It feels like she is back on Krypton, the noise is deafening, its sounds like the moments before Kryptpons' demise, she hides under the kitchen table.

Jeremiah is worried.

Eliza is frantic.

Alex wants to know if she is playing hide and seek and forgot to tell anyone.

Kara really likes Alex

-s-

Eliza drops Alex and Kara of at school

Kara decides that human teenagers are the most perplexing and worst beings in the entire galaxy. They seem to have their own unique social code and norms, they speak a different variation of English and everything and anything that does not follow their social constructs gets ridiculed and teased.

Kara feels like she has entered a new and lot more hostile planet, one that her pods on-board computer did not prepare her for.

She finds her classmates strange, they find her odd

She does not make any friends

Kara follows Alex everywhere

Alex tells her to keep her head down and just act normal, she realises that she has no idea what normal is.

-s-

Kara vows that she will be normal and average, that she will learn to be Kara Danvers. She reads Sweet valley high, Catco teen magazine and watches Dawson's Creek and clueless reruns.

Thirteen-year-old girls like boys, boybands and teenage heart throbs, Kara Danvers must like these things too? She starts obsessing over Leonardo DiCaprio and asks for a NSYNC CD on her Earth-birthday.

Jeremiah starts seeing her as a teenager

Eliza starts seeing her as a daughter

Alex starts seeing her as a pain

They all forget that she is an Alien

-s-

Jeremiah likes science, he likes showing Alex and Kara his experiments. Alex is fascinated Kara just misses Zor-El.

Eliza likes mothering, she likes asking Alex and Kara how their day was. Alex gets scolded Kara gets coddled.

Kara likes Catco Teen magazine, she likes that it is full of helpful tips on how to be a teenage girl. It helps her fit in it and feel normal.

Alex likes surfing, she likes the feeling of the wind in her hair, it helps her feel free and special

Kara decides she is going to take Alex flying.

Alex has never felt this free

Kara has never felt this much like Kara Zor-El

Alex decides that she really likes Kara

-s-

Jeremiah screams at Kara

The world already has a superman

She must just concentrate on being Kara Danvers

-s-

Jeremiah dies

Eliza stares at her work

Alex stares at walls

Kara stares at the stars

Kara hopes to find any of the Kryptonian Gods hidden amongst the foreign constellations. She remembers her dad telling her about the Goddess Kara, showing her the bright stars in the Kryptonian night sky for which she was named.

Zor-El told her that it can take millions of cycles for the light of the stars to reach their eyes, one of these unfamiliar stars might be Krypton. Her culture and her family still alive millions of light-years away and always out of reach.

And for the first time in her live Kara cries

She cries for her parents and for for her aunt Astra, for Kal-El, the Kryptonian who never was because she was not there to teach him. She cries because she failed her mission, because Alex and Eliza who took her in when her own family wouldn't have lost their father and husband. She cries because Jeremiah is gone. Because her culture is gone, her family and friends and the life that she was meant to have, because Krypton is gone…and Kara Zor-El is gone

Kara has never felt more alone.

-s-

Being Kara Danvers has become muscle memory

Unassuming, non-threatening, likable but almost completely invisible Kara Danvers.

Until Alex's plain goes down.

For twenty minutes Kara Danvers Becomes Kara Zor-El. She feels like a kryptonian again, she feels like herself again, highborn, the heir of two great houses, daughter of council members, niece to a military leader.

Stoic, charismatic, respectable and once a future General of Krypton Kara Zor-El

-s-

Seven hours later Cat Grand invents Supergirl

The Courage's, non-threatening, the brave and caring hero of National city.

Someone new Kara must become. Another one dimensional stock character Kara must embody

Kara does not know Supergirl, she wonders why she can't just be Kara Zor-El

Kara decides that she really hates the name _Supergirl._

 **Authors Note: So this was born out of the line "Kara Danvers is who I am, Supergirl is what I can do" I really dislike that line. The thing that makes Superman and Supergirl by extension interesting is the fact that they don't wear masks when they are out fighting crime, but they wear disguises in their human alter egos. Superman/girl is closer to who they are, Clark and Kara are the made up identities. This makes Supergirl even more fascinating, she remembers must have had a reasonable idea of who she was going to be as a teenager on Krypton and all of the sudden she is living under a new name with a new family and has to learn and live with completely new social norms and structures. I wish the show would explore this rather than just turning her into a female Clark Kent/ Superman.**


End file.
